artspot

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Trestle Art Benefit 2017

If you're in New York this Fall or want to obtain art take a trip to Trestle Art Benefit at our main location at 850 3rd Ave, Suite 411, Brooklyn, 11232, or go on line to view art available. The
Trestle Art Benefit an annual fundraiser featuring artworks
by local and national artists, silent auction items, and refreshments
provided by local businesses. Artworks will be on view in the gallery starting November 13th, and the benefit will take place Wednesday, November 29th 7-9pm.
Ticket holders can select their favorite artwork on line.

Wendy White, Maxine (green), 2017; Francesca Pastine, Time and Money #10, 2016; Kate Bae, On Top of the Glacier You Can Feel the Islands From, 2017

2017-2020 National Tour

Cut Up/Cut Out features
approximately 100, 2-D and 3-D works by a dynamic roster of national
and international artists who explore the practice of “cutting” in
various ways – from cut paper to plastic to metal.
The art of cutting paper dates back thousands of years, with early artworks coming from 6th Century China. The artists of Cut Up/Cut Out
explore the many methods of decorative piercing and cutting, but extend
their media to include paper, cloth, metal, wood, rubber and much more.
The transformative nature of cutting into and through a surface
provides endless possibilities for converting the material from opaque
to transparent, from flat to sculptural, from rigid to delicate, and
from ordinary to exquisite. The artist might retain the plane of the
surface and incise it to create lace-like imagery, or use thousands of
intricately cut pieces to build a sculptural object or atmosphere. The
process and precision required for this method of art-making is
laborious, technically demanding, and always astonishing.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Mel Prest, a Bay Area artist/curator made an impromptu video of me talking about two works: The Astronaut and Solaris after Tarkovsky, which are in my show, Curiosity, at Eleanor Harwood Gallery.
Please excuse the alarm that goes off at the beginning of the video.

CURIOSITY

Francesca
Pastine strives to evoke the Romantic notion of the artist as explorer
navigating vast realms of possibility. Inspired by NASA’s Mars Rover, Curiosity,
and its exploration of uncharted territory on Mars, her work offers a
contemporary take on the notion of Sublime, a key theme in eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century American art.Pastine
was drawn to the rover because it is named “Curiosity” and she believes
that being curious is an essential element of being an artist.
Like the Mars Rover, the artist as explorer seeks to go beyond her
limits and to make visible the vast landscape of her imagination.

Pastine probes the potential of material and its transformation through
chance and discovery. The unpredictability of the watercolor medium
allows for inspired accidents; her sculpture is informed by unexpected
juxtaposition and unique contradictions. The paintings appear as
otherworldly landscapes and employ visual voids and veils to represent
sites of artistic ferment, the imagination, and revelation. The
sculptures represent vessels and, like the rover, are of a crudeness
that belies the sophistication essential for the exploration of unmapped
terrain.

I am happy to be included in cut Up/cut Out at the Bedford Gallery. The exhibit opens Sunday, December 18 from 3 to 5pm

ARTFORUM MASK SERIES, Francesca Pastine

December 18 - March 5, 2017

Organized by the Bedford Gallery and will travel nationally.

This winter the Bedford Gallery presents Cut Up/Cut Out,
an exhibition of local, national, and international artists who explore
the captivating methods of decorative piercing and cutting, using a
wide range of media from paper and plastic to metal and rubber. The
transformative nature of cutting into and through a surface provides
endless possibilities for converting the material from opaque to
transparent, from flat to sculptural, from rigid to delicate, and from
ordinary to exquisite. The process and precision required for this
method of art-making is laborious, technically demanding, and always
astonishing. Organized by the Bedford Gallery, Cut Up/Cut Out will travel nationally through 2020.
The art of cutting paper dates back thousands of years, with early artworks coming from 6th
century China. Originally a decorative handcraft for women, Chinese
paper-cutting eventually expanded into rural areas, becoming a staple at
religious ceremonies and festivals. By the 14th century, paper-cutting spread to the rest of the world bringing in a new wave of folk art traditions. Cut Up/Cut Outhonors both innovation and tradition with a selection of over 50 artists representing diverse styles and techniques.